AOL Ventures Into the Amazon
With Outlook for Latin America

By

Kari Huus MSNBC

Updated March 31, 1999 7:01 p.m. ET

Brazil and its neighbors still reel from a currency crisis. The country's telecom companies are in disarray following deregulation. Few of its people have phone lines, never mind computers. Even so, America Online has executives on the ground, and is preparing to make the biggest push yet into Latin America -- and Brazil is at the heart of the plan.

In a partnership with Venezuelan telecommunications giant Cisneros Group , AOL plans to expand its reach to the vast market of Latin America, focusing on its giants -- Brazil,...